Cody Patton is awesome. Truly truly good writing. He represents somewhat of a comfort zone for Ricky in my opinion, in that I don't think Ricky had to reach too far into his bag of tricks in order to get into Cody's head. He feels very real, has some pretty fantastic relationships with his fellow characters (despite the abruptness of their end) and tops it all with a pretty great fight scene.

The only real nitpick I have is that I wish the Eliza Patton relationship was more fleshed out in terms of impact on the story. The fact that she shows up at the end of Cody's time on the island would be better served, imo, if she had spent some time in his story at the beginning, or at least somewhere within it. I can't complain too loudly though - the death was very well written. I expect this caliber of writing from Kilmarnock, but Skraal left it all on the field too, and it's really satisfying to read.

Cody's friendship with Cooper is also a really good example of saying a lot with a little. Cooper and Cody are constantly at odds, constantly questioning one another, but the narrative keeps tying them together as unlikely allies, maybe even friends. It's a fantastically subtle relationship, and I love it a lot.

Overall, Cody is great. He didn't have the impact of Joe or Maddie, but his characterisation is on par with those two much more 'popular' names. If you want an example of a good relationship on the island and some pretty emotional parts along the ride, I'd read Cody.

Ladies and gentlemen, today I bring you the story of the phantom rape. On one side of the coin we have Kayla Ravoy, who was tragically raped by her boyfriend Felix, and whose rape has stuck with her ever since, infecting her mind with images of him racing around the island bestowing his own brand of violence upon its innocent inhabitants. On the other, Felix himself, who claims that it was all lies. I really, really wish I could overlook the rape stuff since it sort of cancels itself out amongst the characters, but since it informs a ton of Kayla’s early game decisions, it’s really hard to.

Kayla lies a lot - or, we’re informed that she does - so the rape itself is cast into this crazy amount of doubt, exacerbated by the fact that both Felix and Kayla were handled by the same person. Kayla’s posts are short and peppered with typos and tense failures, but between the haze of grammatical issues a character is formed, albeit one that’s somewhat against the author’s intentions.

Kayla’s entire story pivots on Felix - he is constantly in her thoughts as this big time villain who is definitely murdering mass amounts of people. Her entire story seems a parallel to his, except nothing really happens with hers. Her first interaction on the island is one that goes nowhere with a girl, then she stops by another person, sees a dead body, and immediately turns tail - a one post drive by. It seems like it’s building towards an eventual meet-up for the two, which we seem to be getting in the third thread. Except, surprise! We just follow the fascinating adventures of Felix as he runs around the area collecting the ‘healthiest snacks he can find’ while Kayla, Gail, and Jackie sit and talk. These four characters are handled by two people, and it is… pretty terrible reading.

When Felix finally comes face to face with Kayla, we are truly in for a pinnacle of foreshadowing. We’ve followed Kayla’s headspace wherein she can barely go two posts without mentioning this awful human who raped her before she could break off their relationships, where she insists that he’s probably racing around with a knife on his penis and is using it to stab people to death with, and when they meet up we are treated to an incredibly awkward argument between the two where everyone else just kinda… sits around and watches, I guess.

Felix hits Kayla with her boomerang - to which she claims he just tried to take her arm off (throwing serious water on the rape claims if she exaggerates this much) and then entices Jackie to attack him. While doing so, she plots the best way to attack Felix herself. When Jackie tells her to run, however, she immediately does so.

Kayla is such a bitch.

She goes inactive/adopts off, and then… dies in someone else’s post.

Man, the fact that she was only really utilized to boost someone else’s story bothers me. She does have some interesting parts of her that are up for debate - whether or not she’s lying/perceiving the rape as something different, whether or not she actually gives a crap about her friends, etc. Because of the hand-off to Dan, she basically teleports between threads and none of this stuff is explored.C+. Rating: Inoffensive.

Keisha and he probs argue a lot? Idk why? But they're both just generally kinda surly?

I'm down with this sickness.

CBP

Depending on flavor of unpleasant Max might be someone he knows, though the weed is something Max would stray away from.

Lucas thinks he's just a violent jerk and stays away from him for his own self-preservation.

Violet feels uncomfortable around him, but doesn't say anything against him when paired up with him for class projects or put in the same table group or whatever.

Skinny talks a lot - he's a motor mouth - and he's sort of sizing you up as he does. When he acts, he acts fast. He's not necessarily a bully but he does tend to lean on people he perceives as weak. Hope this sheds some light on the flavor of unpleasant!

Malloon

Chloe would report on him if she ever got a wiff that he was selling drugs, though she would probably let the weed slide, both because she doesn't consider it to be as bad as other stuff, and because she think the law overreacts in that area. She wouldn't like him, though, and would avoid him.

Joey would consider him unlikable and useless. He would consider him, though, as with all the kids in his year, above and below.

Keith wouldn't like him selling weed. Neo-nazis often have a thing against it. He might respect/fear his willingness to fight, otherwise.

Skinny is also black, if that helps/hurts re: Keith. Chloe would probably be one of Skinny's preferred go-to's to torture if she ever let a hint out that she's anti-drug. Like, mocking debates regarding hypothetical drug use. Can you elaborate on Joey? What do you mean 'consider him'?

SGK

Cleopatra would still be too deferent to snitch on him, but she'd find nonconfrontational ways of expressing her distaste... most of which would be too subtle and fly over his head.

Dunno! We'd have to RP these out - subtlety among high schoolers tends to not be all that subtle and Trevor isn't dumb.

Mikki

Mikki has more than likely invited Skinny to her parties so her friends and guests have a reliable source for drugs rather than having to get the stuff outsourced. Probably had a misguided crush on him at one point, which faded the moment she was exposed to his personality.

Skinny Trevor - a kid with authority problems inspired by his dad. He deals weed (and other shit if he gets special orders) and fights a lot with his group of friends. He's tall and lanky, pretends to be dumb, and is quite an unpleasant fella.

Mitch "Stoogie" Reynolds - a kid with very good mic control and a natural ability with lyrics, he dreams of being a rapper and has a popular soundcloud, is considered to be the next moderately big thing in underground hip hop at the tender age of 16. He is a closeted homosexual, and sorts through his feelings with misogynistic lyrics.

Gretchen Myles - Starting point guard for the school's all-state basketball team, Gretchen has a god-given ability for seeing the court and delivering crisp passes. She's got some scouting buzz, but her teammates tend to overshadow her in terms of ability. Mostly a quiet sort, hiding a very snarky interior.

"Skinny" Trevor Sharpe is a very tall, very broad, very angry young man who enjoys fighting, leveraging his size, and the casual intake of narcotics. He's a corner boy for the local gang beat, and has been a secondary suspect in a mugging last June. Recently, he has started noticing boys.

If you're reading this critique thread, you're probably already disappointed. Over the years I've been on SOTF, I've tried to cultivate a reputation as a deep thinker and an analytical presence for characters, while simultaneously and accidentally cultivating a reputation as a notorious flake and general houdini for months at a time.

As a result, this has led to me promising to look into characters and offer my thoughts, promptly followed by my vanishing for 4 months to go smash model trains together or whatever.

This thread is my solution to that.

This is intended to be the lowest of low pressures, a space for me to finally make good on critiques I feel that I owe. Some may be ones that I didn't go too deep on my three sentence critique thread, others might be ones I've randomly promised in chat and just haven't gotten around to. The order will be random and dependent on my muse, and there will be no set in stone format or anything.

I just want to analyze those I've promised to.

If you feel like I owe you a critique, don't hesitate to hit me up. Consider this thread an open invite to remind me that I mentioned I'd do one back in 2013 or whatever. I will not turn you away.

The three sentence critique thread is shutting down, making this the very last queue I'm going to do. Those that have already posted up in the queue will keep their place, however I'm changing the rules for this last queue I'm doing.

I'll now accept any kids, alive or dead, even if I've done them once already. You also may post two kids at a time. Let's fill the queue out a bunch and make me work for these critiques.

So Jeremy is another kid that on paper probably shouldn't have been as good as he was - the list gimmick, his rapid-fire line breaking style of narrative - but it blends really, really well, especially when he starts crossing things off. It works for motivation and it pays off in the final scene - which is very very unique in execution and very well written - so I'd recommend Jeremy to anyone looking for someone new.

So the best thing I can really say about Matt, because he's had a lot of threads and it's clear some definite seismic shifts have occurred in his character throughout his story, is that he makes me want to delve a little deeper than usual. So I'm using my executive powers as the czar of the 3 sentence critique to delay his critique until I can give him a full comb-through. I will say that I've seen him monologue some in his last thread - not great monologuing, very awkward and not super believable - but Privyet's command on action and voice make him very readable.

Cathryn has a lot of legs from her very first post onwards, and it's fun to me how she's very relevant in that first scene despite having posted well after the other characters in it, and navigates the ongoing action very competently. Her voice is well crafted - when cracks start showing in her armor it's believable, and conveyed well. I like the idea that Cathryn becomes someone who has murdered multiple times but still sort of believes that she just needs to hope to get through it rather than actually grab her own destiny - it's a fresh take on a killer and it hits it's mark, here.

Once upon a time, a really awesome writer came to me with a really rad idea in TV2. "I need a scene right before endgame," he said, "where my character doesn't fight people, just has a chill chat." I was 100% down for it, on board for it, and I even started dreaming about it. This awesome writer wrote up a post, and I promptly disappeared for like 3 months while they just spent a lot of time talking to themselves in a thread before endgame, stalling the character's momentum and making them much weaker as a whole.

Cathryn was the character, and Mararoone was the handler.

I say all of this to warn that I have definite guilt bias towards Cathryn, so warning there.

Conrad's intriguing, and immediately he strikes me as a staple of RC's writing ability - punctuated with quirky language and filled with comparisons that I wouldn't have thought of in a thousand years. I don't think he's RC's best by a long shot - I get the sense that RC never really got a good handle on Conrad as a character - but he's still got some cool situations happening - his killing of Harold and then trying to pass it off as someone else to Isabel immediately stands out. I loved his final death post a whole lot, and that might be RC's best work that I've read.

you know i read first and last threads and your first is a oneshot and your last doesn't contain the kill post

jesus christ boogie

Harold Porter:

I think Harold's first thread - even though it's a oneshot opener - works really well as a lone post because it's mostly a philosophical look at Harold's stance on the game, and sets the tone for what's to come. Harold doesn't compromise in the name of moral hard lines that he's drawn for himself, and I wish I'd seen a little more evidence of that in-game other than his determination to not die. We see very few 'slip into the night' types of deaths in SOTF, and Harold's is exceptional - all three writers in his death thread brought all their weapons to bear and it's a beautiful scene.